User Reviews

Nearing the end in taking part in a poll for the best films of 1974,I started digging for more obscure hidden gems. Curious about the cinema of Iran from that year,I did a search and was delighted to find a title with English Subtitles,leading to me picking up the harmonica.

View on the film:

Placing the camera at the height of the children, writer/director Amir Naderi & cinematographer Ali Reza Zarrindast play a incredibly intimate, documentary-inspired atmosphere from the camera being kept at the height of the children, who see the adults looking disapprovingly down at them, and the child who has gained power from a harmonica being in his hands, towering above them and forcing all to fellow his demands, even sticking a head through (personal prison) bars in a window, just for a moments play.

Filmed on the southern coast of Iran, Naderi goes up the beach with fluid Iran New Wave (INW) panning shots from above, looking down at the dots of children in the middle of a bustling market, where the sound of a harmonica rings out between the background noise.

Crashing the waves of childhood innocence being lost, Naderi jump-cuts to the aggressive faces of the children shoving the others to gain the harmonica, until Naderi breaks the fighting up with a poetic, over saturated INW freeze frame final.

Bringing the harmonica into town via a outsider, the screenplay by Naderi thoughtfully touches on the use of power to keep the population under the bidding of a person, with the mother of the most severely bullied boy telling her son that she does not want to see him "Oppressed", leading to him kicking back from those who view him as their faithful stupid "Donkey",and drowning the power which has been held over him,which finally allows him to play his own tune.